


Here be Dragons

by daughtersofthefire



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughtersofthefire/pseuds/daughtersofthefire
Summary: “We should up the stakes.”“And what would they be?” He asked curiously.“If you win you get the Grondheim papers and if you lose I get to meet with my daughter.”Asriel stared at her strongly, not breaking eye contact with the woman at the table as he ran his hand through his hair and then downed his drink. He simply could not understand her sudden desire to see the girl. What on earth did she want her for? Why now?He didn’t know if it was out of curiosity and the opportunity to find out why and for what purposes she wants the child, or the immense amounts of alcohol he and Marisa had downed in the last few hours, but he found himself nodding to his ex-lover. Agreeing to her terms, “Okay. He whispered.Five years after the Great Flood, the end of the Belacqua Trial and the scandal of the century, Asriel loses a bet and Lyra comes to stay with Marisa, forcing Marisa to confront the previously unexplored realm of motherhood.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter, Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 24
Kudos: 87





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One: A reunion five years in the making and a bet is lost.

The fresh unbroken snow stretched on for miles around her in all directions. The blanket of whiteness unceasing until it finally met the piercing blue of the sky at the horizon’s edges. Marisa was utterly alone and it felt utterly magnificent. This was her paradise. Ever since she had first set first in Lapland several years ago it had immediately become her favourite place in the world. It was unrivalled in her eyes. No other place in the world could ever compare to how the North made you _feel._ To many weaker, lesser-beings, the thought of being all alone in the snow with nothing and nobody for hundreds of miles was a terrifying prospect of complete and utter powerlessness to the nature around them. Yet, to Marisa, being in the snow so far from any remnants of civilisation made her feel powerful, as if she could conquer anything and everything that stepped in her path.

Here was the only place on earth nothing could get in the way of her pursuit of knowledge, no pontifical old men that lauded over the colleges of Brytian and denied the very best and brightest their true place in the world as reputable scholars on the mere basis of their sex. In the North, the dire conditions of life and death that emanated from the landscape usually meant propriety was laid to the wayside and she could easily be mistaken for a scholar without any mutterings of heresy and impropriety. That is, when her research partners weren’t picked from the very depths of the Magisterium’s most archaic quarters, as they had been for this particular expedition. She was already regretting submitting her proposal to the Council, it would have been better to self-fund or even hold discussions at her old college in Oxford. No amount of money or resources for this trip were worth the insufferable time she’d had so far under the watchful eye of Father Machon and his hand-picked researchers, neither of whom had ever been as far North as Upsaala, let alone the isolating depths of Svalbard. Yet, the influence she could yield if the trip proved a success would be worth the sneers and scorn as she tried to work around her fellow trip-member’s incompetence to get the light measurements that would provide the first actual evidence of her theory of dust. The measurements needed to be taken this far North where the sun’s rays were stronger and the unseeable dust, thicker.

The two research aides Machon had hauled from a minor college in York and who spent their days in Magisterium approved and centrally-heated, labs had complained the entire time, constantly disputing her insistence that they must travel further to get what they came for. Father Machon watched on in amusement as they critiqued her credentials, _“she doesn’t even have a doctorate”_ Nathanial had muttered _“she’s never published in this field, who does she think she is?_ ” Jason had added. Marisa had stood there, inwardly seething, gripping hold tight to her daemon, knowing that if she didn’t physically restrain him that the two young researchers would be missing an eye before long. Yet even their remarks and incompetence couldn’t stop her from relishing in the landscape around them. She volunteered to venture further to gather more samples and measurements, taking hours longer than was necessary all for a little bit longer to bathe in the magnificence of the North. Which was why she hadn’t heartily disagreed, when the three men had unilaterally volunteered her for a solo trek across the snow. They had burned through their sampling instruments within a week of arriving at the basic research station and were in desperate need of more or risk returning to Brytian empty handed, having wasted several tens of thousand of pounds of Magisterium money on a useless expedition. Marisa had seethed at this fact, knowing full well their lack of instruments was the result of incompetence on the two male researchers side, who had each broken the filaments of three of the bulb like mechanisms that they were using, as well as their unpreparedness, despite Marisa’s many memos prior to the trip that detailed explicitly as to what was needed in each of their packs. They were currently using Marisa’s own spares that had been weighing down her pack in the week since they’d been dropped on Svalbard’s icy depths from a Magisterium zeppelin.

“You should have checked the packs before we left Mrs Coulter.” Father Machon had glared icily at her.

“Women.” Came a muttering from the corner of the room.

Marisa clenched her teeth tight. “Might I remind you all that actually I was the only one to bring spare equipment, you have been using _my_ spares for the last 2 days. I provided each of you with a list, as the only person on this expedition that has explored this far North, I thought you would appreciate my insight into such matters. I’ve kept copies of the correspondence if you’d like to check.” She had retorted with a smile.  
“That won’t be necessary Mrs Coulter.” Father Machon growled back at her, but had the decency to look flushed. “But that does not solve how we’re going to get our hands on the instruments so avoid going back to Brytian empty handed.”

“There is another research station 10 miles east from here just before the ice shelf. It’s a permanent base so they’ll be well stocked, we could ask them.” Said Nathanial, reviewing the maps on the central table with a ruler and compass.

Father Machon nodded at the information, his eyes glinting as a plan began to formulate. “Given your far greater experience in these lands, it makes sense if Mrs Coulter is the one to go ask for these instruments. It’s not that far, you’ll be able to get there by nightfall if you leave at sunrise.”

“It’s suicide to go out there alone.” Marisa had replied sharply.

It was one of the first things she’d been taught on her very first venture to the North. She could hear the words ring in her ears as if it were yesterday. It was the very basic tenant of survival up here in the snow. Do not go out alone, or risk never to return. Asriel had even tried to frighten the researchers, new to the icy landscape, with stories of daemons going crazed after their humans had gotten lost in the snow, killing their humans in a frenzy of slashed claws and frozen teeth. Several men had groaned and gone a deathly shade of white that they looked paler than the snow around them. The sole other woman on the trip had gasped so loudly at the horror story Asriel was trying to spin, that Marisa had thought she was going to faint. Marisa herself had merely rolled her eyes, directed as much towards Asriel’s dramatics as to the knowledge that she would be stuck with such inferior idiots for so long, and that their presence would limit the opportunities she would have to have Asriel and his wondering hands to herself. In the end, Marisa had proven herself as Asriel’s top researcher by far and it hadn’t been difficult to justify a trip just the two of them to the most inhospitable and dangerous parts, all in the name of research and competence. Marisa bit down on her cheek so hard she felt blood spurt in her mouth, trying to force the memory of her ex-lover away.

“I can’t warrant another body, we still have work to do here with the instruments we still have.”

 _My instruments._ Marisa thought bitterly.

“You will have to attempt it, otherwise we will return empty handed and you know how the Council will hate that. It’s unlikely you’ll get any future funding from them as a result.”

“It would be my pleasure.” She replied sweetly, knowing that it was an insane task but not an impossible one and if anybody could do it, it would be her, who lived and breathed for the North.

* * *

The snow crunched under foot as she walked onwards, across the empty white landscape, leaving only a trail of boot prints and tiny paw prints to the side. Every so often a harsh arctic windswept across the horizon, hurtling towards the lone woman and her daemon and covering the indents in the snow that they’d left behind them. Marisa braced for the impact and despite her remarkable self-control and well made furs, could not stop herself from shuddering. It felt like what she imagined dying to feel like. Cold. The woman smiled despite the unpleasant feeling. It made her feel alive. She’d been walking since sunrise, many hours ago and she had gotten used to the regular sweeps of icy wind that descended and now timed them subconsciously.

She tried not to think of the impending darkness that was starting to brew on the horizon. Marisa was aware her breathing had become more laboured over the last hour or so, likely a mix of the weight of her pack on her back and the coldness that was starting to make her shiver, even despite the large amount of wool and furs that clad her body. She forced herself to remain calm as her daemon stumbled face first in the snow, staying so still for a moment that she’d have feared him dead if her own heart had not still been beating heavily in chest. After that she had hoisted him around a loop in her pack, carrying him as if a mother would her child. Punishment for his weakness would come later, when the threat of danger was not so omnipresent. She could cope, handle the present situation, even as the arctic winds picked up, nearly blowing her sideways and the light started to dwindle. She knew what to do, had been trained precisely for these moments and whatever her current feelings for her ex-lover, his mentoring all those years ago had aided her development as a field researcher immensely. She would survive this. Arguably Marisa had been in far worse and more demanding situations during her pupillage with Asriel. A memory of cliff ghasts came to mind, when an unexpected run-in had forced her to pull Asriel’s unconscious body through the snow for half a day back to their make-shift camp. This time too tired to force the memory from her mind, she let it wash over her before focusing on putting one step in front of the other, continuing their path to the only other figment of civilisation within a thousand miles.

As she reached the crest of the slope she’d been trekking up, Marisa’s lips perked up at the edges, slipping her compass back into her pocket. She could make out the glow of the station no more than a mile or so away through the whiteness that was starting to fall around her. Her Golden Monkey daemon squawked, despite his own exhaustion, in delight that the end was in sight. There they could rest, keep warm and then her unfailing gift of persuasion would be put to use as she’d purr them a thank you for sheltering her that night and that would they be so kind as to contribute some instruments to her return journey. She knew men and she knew the type of men who came out to this god-forsaken barren landscape in the name of adventure, she would barely need to bat an eyelid before they’d have a sackful of instruments ready and waiting. Marisa smirked, her gaze unwavering at the grey metal mound that was quickly being covered in white, at the unsuspecting inhabitants and what they would provide for her.

The smirk was still plastered on her face when the soft glow from the windows came into focus and Marisa approached the silver, reinforced metal door that marked the entrance to to the station. Her daemon hopped down from Marisa’s back as she wrapt the ice pick in her seal-skin clad hands on the metal of the door in front of her. It clanged loudly and she could only imagine the echo it caused on the inside, reverberating around the rooms inside, causing surprise and caution to all those who inhabited it. She stood there for several minutes longer whilst the door stayed unwavering and she tried to avoid thinking about the fact she could no longer feel her toes or her entire left leg for that matter. Suddenly, as annoyance started to brew inside her, the door was pulled inwards and a tall figure with dark hair and several weeks of beard growth stepped into the doorframe. He was illuminated against the anaboric lights that lit the inside of the research station. Yet, Marisa didn’t need the light to discern the man’s features. There was no doubt who this was, especially not given the snow leopard daemon at his side. This was a man she had not seen nor spoken to in over five years. _Asriel._

He does nothing but stare at her for a minute, despite the harsh cold winds blowing around them, the shock of a visitor in this remote land quickly overtaken by the shock of seeing _her_ at the door. Because, despite the dwindling light, the outline of Marisa’s features under her fur hood was unmistakable to his eyes. They were particularly clear to a lover who had intimate knowledge of such features, had practiced hours tracing them in the darkness of dawn when she was fast asleep and he too afraid that she’d up and leave if he ever dared close an eyelid.

Marisa stared back at the towering man in front of her. She was going to kill Father Machon and those petty researchers back at her own station, they must’ve known who would be here and they wanted to purposefully humiliate her by forcing her to go beg for supplies from Asriel of all fucking people.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Asriel hissed at her and his daemon snarled in agreement.

In terms of the first words uttered between them since they’d last parted at the trial some five years prior, it wasn’t the worst that could have met Marisa’s ears, especially given the circumstances of their last parting.

Yet before she could respond, she felt herself swaying on the spot and it took all her self-control and utterly inhumane determination to prevent herself from completely collapsing into the snow right there in front of him. She’d hoped that Asriel hadn’t seen the slight movement her body had forced her into, but his eyes had not left hers since the door had opened. Suddenly, Marisa felt his hands grasp her furs, pulling her inside vigourously. The force of his pull caused her to stumble over the threshold, but luckily not into his arms.

Two of Asriel’s researchers moved towards the open doorway they’d just vacated, struggling to pull the heavy door close, grunting as they worked against the fierce winds that had blustered into the room.

Asriel’s question was left unanswered as he dropped his hands from Marisa’s fur clad body as if he’d been burned by her proximity. He stepped away from her and appraised her from afar.

“Samson, boil the kettle.” Asriel ordered and one of the men who had helped pull the door close gave a curt nod before sprinting from the room towards what Marisa could only assume was a kitchen.

With the man gone, quickly followed by the other, Marisa realised they were quite alone for the first time in half a decade. Silence settled over them, awkward and uninviting, completely foreign to how they once had acted in each other’s presence. Asriel was not one for ceaseless and unnecessary chatter and silences were frequent, but once upon a time such silences between them had been filled with passionate kisses or little absent-minded touches as they both read and worked in Asriel’s laboratory or library, both completely absorbed with their own, or the other’s, research.

Marisa was aware of Asriel’s eyes on hers, looking at every piece of her body except her eyes. Her teeth chattered and she tried to swallow, trying to force the natural bodily reaction to the extreme temperatures from revealing any weakness in Asriel’s presence.

Asriel frowned as his eyes scanned the woman’s body, her lips were tinged blue, her teeth ceaselessly chattering despite her willpower and she was swaying unconsciously. The woman was clearly freezing and the signs of hyperthermia were there, although as she was still conscious the effects were not too severe just yet. Nothing warmth and a hot drink could not rectify.

“Come on.” He said gruffly, breaking the awkward silence and gesturing to the doors that his researchers had vacated the room through.

Marisa followed him briskly into a small kitchen with a large fire burning; the room empty except Asriel and herself now.

“Sit.” Asriel demanded and Marisa was too captivated by the flames in the fireplace to even consider disobeying him out of spite and annoyance at being told what to do. The heat radiating from the dancing flames was immediate and Marisa had to stop herself from moaning as it met her ice-cold body. She deposited herself neatly onto the threadbare rug in front of the fireplace, sitting far too close that she was at risk of being scolded by temperamental sparks.

As she relished in the warmth that was starting to radiate through her body, she barely noticed Asriel untying the furs from her waist, still crusted with thick pieces of snow. He threw them haphazardly to the side and reached for the layer of shirts that clung damply to her body, attempting to lift the damp items over her head.

“Stop.” Marisa protested.

“Marisa I will cut them off of you if you don’t take them off this instant.” Her ex-lover growled with impatience. “You’ve been outside for too long, you need to get everything that’s wet off of your body now or you’re going to get hyperthermia.”

Marisa broke eye contact she was maintaining with the tips of the flames and swatted his hands away from her abdomen. Carefully she lifted each one over her head and handed them to Asriel who threw them on top of her dripping wet furs. She had been his lover for long enough to experience his complete disregard for the quality and expense of her clothes; she would often come away from their encounters with buttons violently flung off and underwear completely shredded at his impatient hands. Knowing the necessity of functioning outdoor wear in the North and their remoteness from anything resembling a place of commerce, she needed to avoid Asriel’s impatient hands. She stood up gently on shaking legs and pulled her trousers and underwear off her body without shame, until she was standing in front of Asriel completely naked.

Gone were the days when he would have revelled in such a view, instead he appraised her body with the clinical gaze of a physician. She shivered anyway as his gazed washed over her, carefully missing out her own eyes. He didn’t speak as he carefully wrapped a woollen blanket around her body tightly before covering it with a fur throw that had previously been draped over one of the kitchen chairs. He gently pushed her back towards the rug in front of the fire where she obediently sat, too tired to fight him.

Asriel watched as she settled back towards the fire, too close for comfort for most people but he knew Marisa was unworldly in some ways, so daring and unyielding in the face of danger. She liked to test herself, to see how far she could push herself and he’d long ago stopped being appalled and afraid on her behalf. He tore his eyes away from her and busied himself pouring hot water into mugs and making tea how she used to like it, brewed strong with no sugar and just a dash of milk. She accepted the mug without meeting his gaze and closed her eyes to savour the warmth of the drink as she brought it to her lips. As she sipped, she felt the warmth start to circulate through her blood stream, pumping around to her fingertips and toes. Meanwhile the furs around her neck were gently tugged down and quickly replaced with a hot water bottle wrapped in cloth. Asriel pressed it against her neck harder than necessary as he stood behind her.

Silence once again settled over them, giving them both unwanted time to think about everything that had passed between them the last time they’d been together five years ago. Marisa tried to bat the memories away of the courtroom: of the tears that had clung to her lashes, the tight grip of her mother’s hand over hers that had left half moon shaped scars on the back of her hand for weeks. Asriel’s face had contorted with anger as he watched on as she’d spun a lie of seduction and force that ultimately had been believable enough for her to have gone unscathed by the court’s judgement. Society’s judgement had been a different matter, but in that moment in the courtroom where the judge’s resolutions had been read out, Marisa’s name had been mentioned nought, whereas Asriel had lost his estates, his money and the daughter she had already disregarded. Marisa swallowed at the memory of Asriel’s lawyer having to force Asriel back to his seat, from which he’d leapt from in anger to shout out about injustice and lies.

What had been the worse part had not been his vivid anger but his obvious repulsion at her lies and the heartbreak that had come with knowing there was no love lost between them anymore. Her daemon had whimpered as Stelmaria had walked out of that courtroom without a single glance in their direction.

Marisa was brought out of the past by a hiss at her ear.

“What did I teach you Marisa? Never go out on the ice alone.”

It was like a teacher scolding his student, but a long time had passed and she wasn’t his student anymore. Annoyance gripped her as she turned to face him with a snarl. “I didn’t have a choice, my expedition needed more instruments.”

“Nobody orders you around Marisa.” Asriel retorted, scoffing at the notion of anyone trying to tell Marisa Coulter to do something she didn’t want to do.

She rolled her eyes at him. Asriel was so engrossed in the privileges afforded to men, he was so incapable of understanding the inherent weakness in power she carried merely by being a woman. In particular a woman still tarnished by their scandal from five years prior.

“As this is the only other station this far North, approaching this station was my only option.” She continued.

“That doesn’t explain why you came alone.”

“Ask Father Machon, I’m sure if I died on the journey he’d consider it a bonus.” Marisa responded drily.

She looked up at him with interest as a sudden flash of rage passed through Asriel’s eyes and she heard Stelmaria growl by his side.

“It’s no wonder the Magisterium’s research is a decade behind, if they insist on sending such incompetent people into the field.” Asriel said. The disgust was clear in his words.

“I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you’d be here.” She snapped back at him.

“You were a sacrificial lamb Marisa, doesn’t that anger you in anyway?”

“Well I’m alive aren’t I? I’m not exactly a novice at all this, I know what to do out there.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t disagree, but he still didn’t have to like the fact that the Magisterium had felt her body and her mind to be so disposable. It was a grotesque thought.

Asriel let go of the hot water bottle at her neck and stepped back away from her. Now that he was sure she wasn’t on the cusp of unconsciousness he felt the need for distance between them as if they were now two magnets with their magnetism rewired, so that whilst once they were compelled for closeness, now they are repelled by one another.

Asriel had hoped he would never see Marisa again, hoped if he limited his trips to London he’d avoid her. Considering the daughter she professed to despise was safely tucked away in Oxford, he felt it unlikely he’d ever bump into her there. For the anger of the trial nearly five years ago still coursed through his veins, only now starting to subdue with time. He wanted her to suffer like she had made him. He had lost everything in that trial, his lands and money and along with it his independence to go off and do whatever, wherever in the name of his research without a care for the cost or the restrictions of funding review boards. Now the college and several sympathetic benefactors funded his trips but along with that came justification and miserly accountants that oversaw his expenditure. He had also lost that day his only daughter, who had been taken from him by the Church. It had only been his determination and the help of the boy Malcolm, that she had been eventually returned to him. Asriel had also lost Marisa that day, when she had sat at the stand and disowned their daughter and painted him as a manipulative and violent monster. That, he had told himself, mattered the least. He did not need Marisa, felt no loss over her as he had his independence or his own blood being torn from his arms by a police officer who had attended the scene of Marisa’s husband’s death. Marisa was hardly a loss, there were other women pining to pleasure him. His daemon Stelmaria growled from the corner of the room, whether this was in agreement or disagreement, it was not clear.

Marisa flicked her head to the source of the noise, the snow leopard was caught up in an embrace with the golden monkey a few feet away. The monkey was positively purring at the snow leopard as Stelmaria nuzzled against him.

“ _Stop that.”_ She hissed at the monkey, but her dæmon merely looked up briefly before continuing to attend to Asriel’s own dæmon.

Asriel meanwhile was oblivious to the display going on in the corner, had he been more aware it would have been likely that he’d physically remove his daemon from the Golden Monkey’s embrace in a rare display of force against his own daemon that could rival Marisa’s.

“Why didn’t you bring spare equipment then? Did I not teach you anything?” Asriel continued their conversation in anger.

Trusting her legs wouldn’t fail her now some warmth had descended back into her circulatory system, she stood up to stare him down.

“Do not assume my incompetence Asriel, the men that underestimate me do so at their peril.” She said forcefully. “I’m the only one on the expedition who has ever been this far North, I brought the spares, made the lists but they didn’t listen to me. Do not dare belittle my intelligence Asriel.”

Asriel clenched his jaw, a spew of expletives concerning the incompetence of the Magisterium’s research departments coursed through his head.

 _“You’re concerned.”_ Stelmaria’s voice echoed in his head.

No. Asriel shook his head. It was more anger at the Magisterium’s hubris and complete and utter disregard for science and safety, and then perhaps a naturally visceral reaction at being faced with an ex-lover for the first time in years. He tried to tell himself. It’s not that he actually cares about her, just so much as long ago he would have. Two completely different things.

“It’s too dark to return now. You’ll have to stay and set off at first light.” He said finally.

Marisa nodded and managed a gracious smile towards him. “Thank you.”

With that, he showed her to his office, guiding her to a small room with a desk littered with hundreds of pages of papers, bookcase crammed full and a camp bed with furs. Asriel always had been a messy researcher but Marisa had learnt long ago his system of order within the chaos. That way she could always snoop through his work and replace it in just the right way, or not if she wanted to infuriate him.

“You can stay in here of the way whilst we work. Whatever you do, do not get in the way.”

His voice was gruff and he turned to leave the room before she could respond to him, but not before Stelmaria whined as she was forced from the embrace of the Golden Monkey. Asriel stared at his daemon, as if daring it to defy him. Stelmaria growled at him in return, to which Asriel snarled back before moving towards his daemon and raking his hands through its fur, pinching it ever so slightly to force her to follow him from the room. Daemon’s always were such an inconvenience. Marisa thought. Traitors of the art of subtlety and true desire.

As Asriel’s footsteps echoed away towards the lab room, Marisa wrapped the furs he’d given her tighter against her chest to avoid a chill. Whilst the whole station had the modern convenience of central heating, the arctic cold was inescapable especially in rooms without an additional fireplace. Eyeing the battered trunk underneath the dusk that Asriel had always used on his travels, Marisa started towards it, rummaging around in its contents looking for something. She picked up a shirt and disregarded it in disgust, replacing it in her hands with another less ghastly coloured one along with a brown cashmere jumper and some woollen socks. She then dropped the furs and blanket that Asriel had wrapped around her and buttoned up his shirt which fell to her knees. The jumper was just as large and she rolled up the sleeves several times before wrapping the blanket back around her. In the years of their affair she had worn Asriel’s clothes many times, especially since his manor in Oxford was particularly draughty, as old and large houses in England tended to be, especially in winter and her silk-based wardrobe could never quite contend with the warmth of his cashmere jumpers and woollen socks. She had spend many winter nights wrapped in that very jumper reading in Asriel’s arms as he read another book above her head. She had always felt at home in his arms and clothes, more so than any house she’d ever lived in. Yet the illicit nature of their affair had obviously meant that she could never keep any of it, the clothes or him. Indeed the only physical items of his that she still kept was a 1st edition book he given her for her 24th birthday and some jewellery that she’d initially refused as such an inappropriate gift as they weren’t married. Yet she’d kept them anyway, at least everything that lacked the Belacqua crest, that would have been tempting fate too far. She’d told her husband they were her own family heirlooms when he’d asked one day where she’d acquired the beautiful sapphire necklace she was locking away in her jewellery box. Edward had accepted the lie from her lips with a kiss and one of her best smiles; he had no reason to doubt her as she has always been meticulously careful. The jewellery pieces were still there even now, at the bottom of her jewellery box, unseen in half a decade.

Marisa tried to shake the memories away and glared at the Golden Monkey as if it was his fault the memories that she’d tried so hard to suppress for five years were becoming overwhelming. He whimpered at her and scampered over to the camp bed, settling himself out of her reach and in the blankets that still held Asriel’s scent. Marisa rolled her eyes and ignored her daemon, turning to the bookcase in the corner and selecting a book at random to flick through the pages. Boredom overtook her quickly. For the last two weeks since the expedition had began she’d been constantly busy, a hazard that came with being the only woman and the only competent researcher among the expedition team. As such the heavy lifting of setting up the instruments, monitoring them all day and the mundane tasks of cooking had all fallen to her, whilst the men sat inside the tents reading and attempting to interpret her findings. Aside from the meagre hours of sleep she had been getting, Marisa had had no time for herself or to think about anything aside from the work at hand. It was difficult thus to relax when she hadn’t been used to it for so long, made even harder by the fact her ex-lover was mere feet away doing his own research she’d die to get her hands on.

Marisa sighed, throwing the book haphazardly onto the bed, making the monkey jump slightly from his cocoon in Asriel’s bedding. She moved instead towards the desk, curiosity working to lessen the threat of impending boredom. She flicked through the various papers on his desk, deciphering her ex-lover’s messy scrawl of a handwriting with ease. She noticed that he had quite a few calculations crossed out in red and fought back the idea of writing her own ideas in the margins, a habit they’d had during their affair. Instead to annoy him she picked up his field diary and flicked through the pages, noting the path he’d taken the last month through the territories in the North. He’d been a week ahead of her own exploration party all the way through, which annoyed her unnecessarily. She placed it back on the desk, this time a few inches to the right of its original place, which she knew would infuriate him to no end when he came back to his study. As she moved it, several pieces of paper flittered out from between the pages of the diary. Curious, Marisa picked up a square of glossed paper that had landed face down on a pile of papers and turned it over in her hands. She dropped it almost instantaneously as if it had scolded her fingertips. Staring back at her from a five inch photograph was a girl with dark curls looking down happily at a tiny pine martin daemon in her hands. Marisa was not an expert in child development, but she estimated the girl to be just past the toddle phase, which would make the photogram fairly recently taken, given the fact that the girl could be no more than 5 years of age.

Marisa swallowed hard. With a finger raised she gently brushed it against the rosy cheeks of the girl in the photograph. _Lyra._ This was _her_ daughter. A girl whom she had not seen since shortly after her birth, who had been in hidden by Asriel from her late-husband’s wrath and then taken by the Church when their indiscretions had come to light. She had been forced to disown her daughter in the courtroom at Asriel’s trial, it had been the only way to survive. Her choices had alienated Asriel, who had lost his money and lands and left her without the child she had birthed only weeks beforehand. He had never forgiven her for it. Since then, she had only sought out her daughter once, during the Great Flood. She had known Asriel had wanted their daughter back from the convent she’d been sent to by the courts, and Marisa never liked when Asriel got something she couldn’t have. So she had tried to reach the girl first with unfortunately no success and the next thing she had heard Asriel had taken their daughter to his college at Oxford where he’d invoked scholastic sanctuary in protection against repercussions from the Church and beyond the clutches of his ex-lover.

Marisa had never understood why he had wanted the girl so badly, especially not when she was the reason their affair had come to light and he had lost everything at the trial. That child was nothing but bad luck and a constant reminded of their indiscretions and thus all that they had lost. Who one earth would want to face such a creature each day, Marisa simply did not know? She had handed the newborn baby to the awaiting midwife that Asriel had carefully arranged, to take the baby to Belacqua Manor in Oxford. She hadn’t wanted the girl, not in the circumstances that came with her birth, an adulterous affair, a bastard child, so Marisa had simply given her away.

“What are you doing?”

In one swift motion Marisa shifted the photograph underneath several papers and looked up at her ex-lover who was stood on the threshold of the room.

“Reading.” She retorted. “Dear me, it doesn’t look like you’re getting far with these calculations.” She tutted, tapping at the paper all covered in red ink with a long finger nail.

“Stop sabotaging my research.” Asriel growled at her, before stepping into the room with the snow leopard at his side.

He tore the paper from her grasp and held it away from her as if she was contaminating his work merely by holding it.

“I have no interest in what you are doing Asriel.” She said dismissively. _It was a lie and he knew it._

“Liar.”

“You’re so self-obsessed Asriel, not everything you do is so influential we all must want to replicate it.”

He smirked at her in response.

“However, if you want _me_ to help with _your_ research I’ll happily oblige.”Marisa smiled brightly at him, wiping the smirk from his mouth.

“And how, may I ask, would you do that?”

“You can start with reading Grondheim’s last theorem, the answer to your failed calculations is there.”

“I would.” Asriel growled “If the Magisterium hadn’t burnt all the copies in Europe.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before. I distinctly remember your library consisted of half a wall of heretical books.” 

Memories of the library filled her mind, forcing their way through despite her silent protests. Before the trial Asriel had had a library to rival any of the Oxford colleges. An eclectic range of books lined the walls floor to ceiling that had been in Asriel’s family for generations and expanded largely by the man himself over the course of his many travels and experiments. They had spent many hours in that room together, to the point that when Edward was away from Brytain she spent more time in Asriel’s library than she did the one at St Sophia’s or at Bodley’s. Asriel’s personal collection was so much more thorough when it came to experimental theology and he had more than one first edition of many seminal works. Yet as much as she had loved that room and all that was in it, Marisa had been appalled with how brazenly he had treated heretical works, displaying them so obviously to all his potential guests. Not that Asriel entertained much. She presumed most of those works had been burnt by now, given that his manor house had been commandeered by the Church within hours of the trial’s resolution. She suspected his other more acceptable books now littered the personal shelves of the Magisterium’s top officials in London and a tinge of sadness burst in her heart at the thought of Asriel’s magnificent collection being broken up.

“I have to admit I wasn’t quick enough to realise the value of Grondheim’s work before the Magisterium.” Asriel admitted begrudgingly. With all his travels it was always difficult to keep up with new publications before the Magisterium’s censor caught up with them. This time he hadn’t been quick enough.

“Luckily I had the foresight to recognise such value.” Marisa caught his eye and smiled mischievously. “And had such foresight to save a copy.”

“Aha, Marisa you would never do such a thing, you live and breathe the words of the Church.” Asriel taunted her.

“The Magisterium maintains copies of all papers banned for public distribution in Brytian. I have access to such resources, it’s very similar to walking through your old library. It was a miracle your house was never searched or you’d have been locked up in the tower years ago.”

“Or a miracle you didn’t denounce me yourself.” He muttered under his breath.

Although they both knew why she’d never offered him up to the Magisterium. She had loved him too much for that, and plus the papers deemed heretical by the Magisterium were also what had sparked her own curiosity.

“I admit, in the case of the Grondheim papers, that in my curiosity I may also have kept a personal copy for myself.” Marisa smirked at her ex-lover, daring him to denounce her to the Magisterium for breaking their sacred laws. “I can give them to you, if you want?”

Her face was sweet and innocent, with her full lips turned into a radiant smile, yet Asriel knew her too well to fall for such tricks.

“And what would you want in return Marisa?” He eyed her suspiciously.

“Who said I wanted anything?” 

“You always do.” 

“I’ll give you the Grondheim papers, if and only if you agree to my terms.” 

“And what terms are they?” Asriel’s eyes narrowed at her, it was like making a deal with the devil when it came to negotiating with Marisa Coulter. 

“I want to see the girl.” Her answer surprised even herself as the words slipped through her mouth and the Golden Monkey looked up from his perch at Stelmaria’s side, startled. This was unexpected.

“What are you doing?” Her daemon hissed. 

But the photo of their daughter, lying underneath the papers on his desk was clear in Marisa’s mind. She had to see the girl. The thing that Asriel lauded over her as the one thing she could never have. She needed the girl. Seeing that picture had only accelerated a rage that had been brewing since she had first learnt that her ex-lover had managed to seize the girl during the flood nearly five years ago and taken her out of reach locked in Asriel’s old college.

For a moment Asriel was speechless and he merely stared at his ex-lover in surprise, for he expected anything else to come through her lips then that. Ever since the courtroom those years ago, when she had renounced her connection to Lyra and made him out to be some beastly manipulator who had seduced her against her will, he had presumed Marisa incapable of true feeling beyond malice and spite. She had made it quite clear that day that she wanted nothing to do with the child they had produced. She had vocally and publicly rescinded any claim she could have had on that child. Even before then, before the birth, Marisa had been clear their only option going forward was for him to take care of the girl. She lacked any of the typical interest in their child that an expectant mother would usually display. In fact Asriel’s memories of Marisa’s pregnancy were dominated with Marisa treating the growing child inside her as a mere inconvenience instead.

“Absolutely not.” He snapped back and his daemon growled loudly in support.

“Okay.” Marisa said simply. “Then you won’t get the Grondheim papers and without that, it will take years to fix the problem you have here.” She pointed to the papers on his desk covered in his crossings out. 

“If it takes years then so be it, you are never getting your hands on the girl. You didn’t during the flood and you’re not now.” Asriel practically snarled at her and Marisa knew she would need to change tact for any hope of convincing her ex-lover to concede the girl to her, at least for a visit.

“What do you have against a motherless child connecting with her mother?” She said it sweetly with the pleading eyes of a mother whose child was missing. It was a very convincing display if Asriel hadn’t known Marisa’s playbook, intimately.  
“Because you will corrupt her Marisa.” 

She seethed at him with anger and the Golden Monkey bared its claws at the snow leopard.

“Why on earth do you want her Marisa?” Asriel sighed as if a wave of exhaustion had overcome him. He just couldn’t understand this sudden change of heart, not after hearing nothing but silence from her since the trial.

Marisa stared back at Asriel and resigned not to tell the truth, that she wants everything she can’t have and even more she craves everything Asriel has but she does not, and that includes the girl. That their entire lives since their first meeting several years ago had been a series of games and she’s now seeking vengeance from the last round which she sorely lost, in more ways than one.

“You don’t understand a mother’s need for her child.”  
“If you truly cared for her Marisa, you would have claimed her as your own five years ago, not disowned her.” _Disowned me,_ went unsaid, but hung clearly in the air between them.

“I regret my actions back then Asriel.” She replied, convincingly demure. “I was young, I wasn’t ready for a child.” 

In fact she’d been 24 years of age, barely years out of her own studies at St Sophia’s and whilst marriage at 22 hadn’t seemed out of place, a child was another thing all together, especially for such an ambitious women as Marisa.

“And you are now?” Asriel questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“I am in a suitable point in my life for one yes.” 

“And you can’t just get a new husband to give you another child?” 

Asriel’s words felt like a slap against her cheek and Marisa gritted her teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction and let him see that he had gotten under her skin.

“Lyra’s _my_ child.” 

“You gave birth to her, that is all.” 

Fury coursed through her veins and she had to suppress a snarl in response to his words. Marisa knew Asriel too well, he would not respond nicely to anger. If she were too get her way she would need complete and utter self-control. A feat she prided herself in, but which often came apart in his presence. Asriel knew, from their intimate history, just what nerves to press, how to taunt her over the edge without her even realising it.

“All I am asking is a day out with my daughter, to watch her grow. All I want is a day of her life Asriel, please grant me that?” Her eyes widened pleadingly at Asriel. It was as close to begging as Marisa Coulter would ever get.

“No.” Asriel’s response was sharp and immediate. His anger over her dismal of him and her lies about their affair were at the forefront of his mind, he hadn’t forgotten that day.

“Fine.” She retorted a smile plastered to her face. She refused to openly beg, she would have to find another way to get the child bag instead, just as soon as she was back in Brytain. Plans started to formulate in her mind, different ideas and methods swirling around as if Asriel hadn’t just rejected her plan A. There were other letters in the alphabet, other plays in her playbook. She’d find a way.

“You can sleep in here.” Marisa jerked herself out of her daydream to find Asriel turning towards the door, their conversation now clearly over. “You can leave at first light.” He added without any mention of the instruments she had come to collect.

* * *

After Asriel had left, nobody disturbed her for hours, although Marisa could hear the distant sounds of instruments clacking and a whisper of conversation from the next room over. She passed the time reading Asriel’s travel log, carefully avoiding the glossy photograms of their child on the desk. She occasionally jotted her own notes and opinions in the margins, which she knew Asriel would get furious over when he came to find them and even flipped open her own notebook from her pack when she noticed an interesting theory Asriel had noted or a proof she wanted to check later. Marisa was so engrossed in the diary that she barely noticed when the door opened and one of Asriel’s tweedy researchers came in muttering shyly about dinner and placing a chipped bowl with soup and a slice of bread on Asriel’s desk for her before exiting without another word. Hungry for subsistence given that her last meal was prior to her trek across the arctic tundra hours ago, Marisa abandoned the diary and reached for the soup, greedily lapping it up and trying not to think about the fact that this soup is a favourite of hers from previous expeditions and only one other person in the building knew of this fact.

As she tucked into the bowl the monkey sat brooding at the doorway, staring longingly at the closed door and occasionally whimpering if his acute hearing picked up any sound of the snow leopard from the other room. Marisa growled at her daemon threateningly, fury at the cursed thing rising through her veins and his inability to control his feelings, for they were certainly not hers. She concedes that she may have loved Asriel once, but time had moved on and he was nothing more than an inconvenience to them both now. She certainly wouldn’t pine for him through a closed door.

After finishing the soup Marisa tried to settle herself back at Asriel’s desk, attempting to decipher his most recent findings, but she found herself unable to concentrate for her daemon had now ceased whining at the door and had now turned his attention to her, mute but staring straight at her with large wide sad eyes.

“Oh for goodness sake.” She spat at him and the monkey jumped back alarmed that she might slap him again. Yet instead she moved around him and the desk and stepped towards the door. “Let’s see what they’re up too.” Marisa said with a conspirative smile and the monkey leaped in excitement across the room towards her.

She entered the main research room of the station dressed in Asriel’s clothes with the furs from the fireplace still wrapped around her shoulders. Empty bowls had been pushed to onside at the end of a long table and instead cards littered the tabletop with ivory counters and chipped tumblrs of an amber liquid lying in front of each of the five men seated around the table. They were playing a game Marisa knew well from her own travels and the society tables at the casino in Deauville.

As she entered the four researchers under Asriel’s command stared at her in a mix of awe and confusion. She was probably the only woman they had seen in weeks and it definitely showed.

“Ah Marisa, care for a drink?” Asriel said joyfully, clearly several drinks in and acting as if their previous conversation several hours ago hadn’t happened, or at least had not deteriorated in the manner it had.

In response Marisa stepped forward towards the table and deposited herself neatly intothe empty chair to the only empty chair to Asriel’s right. She didn’t need to look down to know that her daemon had scuttled under the table and right into Stelmaria’s outstretched paws. At least they were under the table, she thought, away from prying eyes.

“Yes.” She said with a flash of white teeth to the men at the table. “And I want to buy in.”

“B-but.” Stuttered the bearded man opposite her. “This isn’t a game for women.”

Marisa rolled her eyes but her retort was cut short by Asriel’s hearty laugh.

“Samson, pour Mrs Coulter a drink, be liberal with it. And Derek good luck telling Marisa that.”

The youngest researcher that still looked practically pubescent without a single hair on his chin dutifully took Asriel’s bottle of a flavourless spirit from the side and poured a glass into a chipped mug for her that looked thankfully somewhat clean from Marisa’s perspective. She took it from his outstretched hand with a smile that made the poor researcher blush the colour of a ripened plum in autumn. Knowing the other men’s eyes were still on her, Asriel included, she brought the cup to her lips and downed the drink. It was truly a vile substance and not what she’d usually drink given the choice, but it wasn’t her first time in the far north and it’s not like after the trial she hadn’t practically drowned herself in spirits. She could handle her liquor, even things that should more aptly be classified as paint thinner instead of an alcoholic beverage.

Asriel chortled at the shocked faces of the other men at the table and divided his own ivory tokens with Marisa without saying a word. He had long ago learnt of Marisa’s high alcohol tolerance and no matter how hard he tried she had always seemed incapable of being truly intoxicated. He had given up matching her drink to drink long ago. He glanced at her briefly and met her gaze with a smirk, she couldn’t stop the curved edge of her lips turn up into a smirk in response.

“I’ll deal.” Asriel said, breaking their gaze as quick as they’d started and turned back to the game at hand.

For his comments about it not being a women’s game, Marisa targeted the bearded man with freckles that she had a vague memory as being a scholar from St Gabriel’s. His work, she remembered, was always sub-par and superfluous. It only took her 15 minutes for her to have him right where she wanted him and his tokens were swept across the table and into Marisa’s hand. Asriel watched on without a word, smirking at the man muttered obscenities at his loss and left the room with a kick of the chair in annoyance.

It takes 15 minutes for her to have him right where she wants him and he’s out of the game with his tokens in Marisa’s hands. Asriel says nothing but smirks as the man mutters obscenities and leaves the room in annoyance.

“Beginners luck.” Marisa said brightly.

They continued playing, this time with the other men taking the threat of the woman at the table more seriously. They had heard of her of course, practically everybody in Brytain knew of Marisa and Asriel’s ill-fated affair, the story having been splashed across the newspapers and gossip columns for weeks. Yet known of them had personally known her, not from her days when her visits to Oxford and in scholarly circles had more frequent. If they had, they would not have initially underestimated her at the table, at least not until the second of them had fallen foul of Marisa’s card hands. That time she did not feign beginners luck. As the clock ticked on, the other researchers gradually left the room in search of the beds, having suffered almost equal losses to the pair of ex-lovers, leaving Marisa and Asriel alone once more.

Asriel reached across her for the bottle of Tokay they had moved on to drinking and he poured them more liberal glasses of the golden liquid. As he handed the full glass back to her, Marisa gasped as she felt the snow leopard scratch her head against Marisa’s legs under the table. Asriel frowned and reached under the table to pry his daemon off of Marisa.

Ignoring the sensation that coursed through her body at being touched by Asriel’s over-familiar daemon, Marisa turned to him.

“We should up the stakes.”

“And what would they be?” He asked curiously.

“If you win you get the Grondheim papers and if you lose I get to meet with my daughter.”

Asriel stared at her strongly, not breaking eye contact with the woman at the table as he ran his hand through his hair and then downed his drink. He simply could not understand her sudden desire to see the girl. What on earth did she want her for? Why now? He didn’t know if it was out of curiosity and the opportunity to find out why and for what purposes she wants the child, or the immense amounts of alcohol he and Marisa had downed in the last few hours, but he found himself nodding to his ex-lover. Agreeing to her terms, “Okay. He whispered.

Marisa smiled as her hands deftly went to shuffle the card deck once more, dealing out their hands for the next round, the round that would decide everything.

It is always difficult playing with ex-lovers, infinitely harder than playing against the best players in the country, because even time cannot stop the most passionate of once ago lovers from knowing your most intimate details, the tells in the pupils of your eyes, in the taunt skin across the collar bone. To win against a lover, or even an ex-lover of years gone by, one must lie to themselves, to their own core. Luckily, Marisa had had practice.

In the rounds preceding that moment Marisa and Asriel had had an almost equal amount of wins and losses. They were evenly matched in intellect, strategy and both had insider knowledge of one another’s tells. For a betting man the odds were roughly equal. However, Marisa’s desire for this one thing she could not otherwise have was blinding her, she had a rage that could not be tempered without this win. She was blinded by desire to crush Asriel and have him concede to her the very think he’d taken and kept from her nearly five years ago. _Their daughter._ In the end the match was close but not a draw and it came down to a single hand that Marisa wasn’t sure whether she could pull it off until she did. Asriel didn't say anything as she revealed her final hand to him. He silently downed the last of the amber liquid and slammed the empty glass back down on the table and standing up from the table with force that the chair goes tumbling away. He should have known better than to have made a deal with the devil, to bet against Marisa. She merely stared at him in return, eyebrow raised and unfazed by the act of aggression emanating from her ex-lover.

“You know when you used to lose before you were a lot more gracious.” She noted, standing up and moving into his personal space.

That was because losing was nearly just as satisfying as winning back then, given the fact their bets nearly always consisted of bedroom related activities. He thought.

“A lot’s changed in five years.”

“Yes, I suppose it has.” She conceded.

Asriel stared at her hard with a mix of hunger and disgust. She was now inches from his face, their bodies close but not touching. He could see the first signs of age on her face now, the faint creases around the concerns of her mouth and eyes that he’s sure she spent many hours trying to hide. The little differences that time had cast on her brought home to Asriel just how young she’d actually been during their affair, still in her mid-twenties by the end of it. Yet, even though the years had past and she’d now crossed the threshold of her thirties, Asriel couldn’t help noticing the fact she still looked as beautiful as she had done in the days her body had warmed his bed. He breathed heavily and the warmth of his breath hit Marisa’s own face, yet her face remained impassive and unyielding.

This was the moment to talk. Marisa thought. If they were any other couple, this would be the moment. Although, if they were any other couple they probably wouldn’t even be in this situation. So far from home, in the middle of a barren ice shelf in the depths of the North, sitting at a table drinking Tokay and playing cards. For their present circumstances had been forged long ago at the first meeting of two passionate and intelligent people who should not have been together and yet who could not and would not deny the attraction that shocked them both with its depth. 

This was the moment in their first reunion since their affair where they could talk, talk about it all, their affair, their child, the trial, what he’d said and she’d said. Maybe they could forge a bridge across the chasm that now divided them. Yet, they’d always been better with touches than words and she could feel the twitch of his fingers at her side, his self-control barely there to stop them from running his hands up and down her arms.

Instead, they stood there in front of one another, gaze unwavering and the conversation racing unspoken through their eyes, each one daring the other to utter the first words or to move their lips one inch closer. It felt like an eternity they stood there holding one another’s gaze, both so stubborn, neither willing to go first. In the end the connection was broken by a coughing fit coming from the sleeping quarters next door.

“Goodnight Marisa.” Asriel uttered and he dropped his gaze from her eyes, leaving everything left unsaid as they both knew they would.

She turned away from him, biting her lip to avoid the pinpricks of tears that threaten to fall and made her way back to Asriel’s study without looking back at the man who stood rooted to the spot in the room she’d just left. It was an unsatisfactory goodnight for all.

* * *

It was early when Marisa woke to Asriel’s hands roughly shoving at her arm. It was a far cry from their past morning wake-up calls, although nonetheless Marisa was still forced to beg her heart to stop beating so fast as she felt Asriel's hands on her body. The light of dawn was just about to break and it couldn’t have been more than a few hours since they’d sat at the rickety table in the lab playing cards. If she had been any other woman, the amount of alcohol still circulating in her system would be immobilising. Yet, Marisa was not any other woman and she merely wiped the sleep from her eyes, immediately alert at the start of a new day.

Asriel handed her her own now-dry clothes that he’d brought in for her to wear. She took them wordlessly from him and smirked as she folded them and placed them straight into her own pack. He rolled his eyes at her but didn’t comment. She always did have an affinity for wearing his clothes, except back then, she could never have taken them from his rooms or risk revealing their affair to her husband. The single act now just reinforced how much had changed in the last five years.

“Charles has arranged the instruments you requested. You can tell Father Mahon I will invoicing the Magisterium come my return to Brytian.” He said finally and Marisa rolled her eyes in response.

She watched as he moved towards his desk and pulled a fresh piece of paper from a stack and hastily scribbled in ink a note.

She looked at him bemused. “Is that all or can I go now?” Marisa raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“You can personally give the Grondheim papers to the Master of Jordan College along with this note.” He signed his name, folds the paper and shoved it into Marisa’s hand. “Then you can spend a single day with the girl before returning her to Jordan College.” 

Marisa doesn’t remind him that wasn’t the terms of their bet, that as she won she should get the prize and Asriel should get nothing. It was supposed to be a zero-sum game, winner takes all. But she will take the compromise anyway, as he knew she would because her desire for the prize is too great to care about what she loses along the way.

She nodded at him, refusing to utter a thank you and followed Asriel from the room, hauling her pack along with her. Two of Asriel’s researchers were waiting for them by the door, their furs already buttoned up on their scrawny frames.

“What’s all this?” Marisa questioned.

“Samson and Derek will accompany you back to your expedition.”

“This isn’t necessary, I made it here by myself, I can make it back.”

“You had hypothermia Marisa, you pushed yourself too hard and I highly doubt Father Machon will have the same greeting as I did if you turn up half dead.” Asriel retorted and Marisa glared at him, offended by the notion of his concern, but didn’t argue with him. The two men had a sled already packed with the instruments she’d asked for and it would help immensely to divide the load.

Turning towards the door she was thankful that the two other researchers had already assembled themselves out in the snow because the embarrassment over what came next would have been immense had they had an audience. For the golden monkey screeched and clawed at the floor to as he was forcibly pulled from the snow leopard’s paws; Stelmaria whined in response, baring her teeth towards the woman. Marisa snarled at her daemon and smacked him hard across the monkey’s face without compassion before stepping out into the snow and failing to bid Asriel a goodbye or even utter a thank you. They would have to be careful, Marisa thought, if they were ever to run into one another in Brytain, to keep careful attention and control over their daemons, less society run amok with even more rumours.

She tucked the letter Asriel had given her into the inside pocket of her furs as she walked. Impatience suddenly flooded her as they began to set off on the long trek towards the other research station. The beauty and peace she usually found in the arctic landscape disappeared at once, now she only wished she could be back in Brytain to cash her in her prize. Nothing could stand in her way from reclaiming her daughter now.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another reunion, five years in the making and scholastic sanctuary is broken.

The number of times Marisa had been in Oxford since the trial was less than the number her daughter had circled the sun. The times Oxford had successfully beckoned her from London had only occurred once it had became glaringly unavoidable and not going threatened detrimentally to her work: a manuscript only Bodley had, an artefact in the vaults of her old college, time with the alethiometer. Even then she had sheltered herself at St Sophia’s and the library, timed such visits in a way when she knew Asriel was out of Oxford, or better yet out of the country, as to avoid any awkward encounters.

The rarity of her visits was in spite of her own research interests and Oxford’s pre-eminence in the subject matter, not that female scholars were ever privy to much of other’s advancements in the field of experimental theology anyway. Instead, her avoidance had much to do with the past, not to say anything of the fact Asriel had made her almost persona non grata in the entire city, not just his own college, for the last five years. In Marisa’s eyes Oxford was bathed in so much sin that the city was positively sinking under its weight. Not only did it currently house the very real living reminder of her own sin, but the whole city itself was beholden to memories of her and Asriel’s illicit affair. In Oxford there had been far less prying eyes than London, it was easier to sneak off there, even for days at a time without anybody noticing. They had made extensive use of the empty rooms in the library, where he had pushed her up against ancient manuscripts for better access, his thrusts forcing her back painfully into the mahogany shelving. The memory still evoked the sensation of ornately carved wood pressing into the base of her spine and she unconsciously moved her hand to her lower back, rubbing gently to soothe the memories of inflamed skin. They had spent days in the Belacqua Manor too, back when it had been safely among Asriel’s many possessions. Their time there often coinciding with Edward’s trip outside of the country, spending half their time in bed and half naked in his own private library, perfectly representing their constant battle for mind and body. London had been where their affair had started but Oxford had been where it had come to fruition and then abruptly ended the day Edward had attempted to murder her daughter.

Marisa tightened her grip on the Golden Monkey’s hand until he squawked at her in pain, as if this masochistic act would keep the invading memories of butterfly kisses and sweet caresses at bay. She didn’t let go until they had traversed Oxford’s awakening streets from the aërodock they’d arrived at on the first morning airship from London, and walked the final few meters to the gates of Jordan College, crossing the threshold into the very place that had barred her for half a decade.

“I need to speak with the Master.” She said politely with a flash of white teeth and a light purr.

The young porter that greeted her in the entranceway to one of Oxford’s grandest colleges gaped at the beautiful woman who had entered. He was used to monitoring the comings and goings of the college's scholars, sending and receiving their packages and chaperoning the occasional female scholar; nothing could have prepared him for the power and beauty that unexpectedly stood before him.

Almost chastising himself for refusing her, the man stuttered a response. “The Master is very busy, unless you made an appointment you won’t be able to see him.”

“The Master will see me now.” Marisa said firmly, her smile still plastered to her face.

“I can’t allow that Ma’am.” The pain at refusing her was clear in his eyes.

Marisa stopped herself from rolling her eyes at his response, couldn’t he see that nothing could stop Marisa Coulter from getting what she wanted? Not now, not given the stakes. 

“I have come at the behest of Lord Asriel. Do you know who he is?”

“Yes ma’am I do. He’s not in college today.”

This time she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Yes I know that.” She said snippily. “I was told to come here by Lord Asriel himself, I have a message from him for the Master. Now do you see why it is integral that I see the Master right this instant?”

“Yes ma’am.” The porter stuttered once more. “I’ll go get him now.”

“Good.” Marisa smiled again as the porter bumbled down the stone hallway to do her bidding.

* * *

“A woman is here to see you Master.”

“A woman?” The Master stared incredulously at the young porter that stood before him.

Jordan College was one of the most established and traditional colleges in Oxford. It’s rich history and traditions, which they upheld with the same determination and zeal as a priest would the Bible, lended itself to an informal reputation for being the most misogynistic of the old colleges. A female scholar in the grounds of Jordan was thus not a comment sight. Indeed bar a few maids and the girl in the college’s care, all of the inhabitants of the college were male.

“I don’t have an appointment with a female scholar today. Send her away.” The Master dismissed the porter with a hand and went back to writing in the book at his desk.

Mumbling awkwardly the young porter was reluctant to leave. “She is most insistent. She says she’s come here on Lord Asriel’s orders.”

“Lord Asriel? But he’s in the far North for at least another fortnight.”

“She says she has word from him there, that he sent her here with a message for you.”

The Master frowned and thought for a moment at the peculiar puzzle that this was swiftly becoming.

This unexpected visit of a woman to Jordan College started to make more sense the moment the door to the Master’s study shortly re-opened and the silhouette of a beautiful woman filled the doorframe. Mrs Coulter was as breathtakingly beautiful as the Aurora Borealis itself, that much was clear even to an old bachelor like the Master. She stood before him robed in a red tailored suit with a matching pillbox hat perched on the crown of her head. She was a flame of fire and as dangerous as such. The Master had not seen the woman in nearly 6 years, when her visits to Oxford and at scholarly events had been more frequent. Back then, even if she were a woman, it had been hard to ignore what could have quite possibly been one of the cleverest women in Oxford. He’d read her thesis of course, been on the committee that had formally denied her a doctorate, all on the basis of her sex, because the actual writing had been phenomenal, certainly one of the best approaches to experimental theology that the Master had ever seen from a student at Oxford. A pity she had to be female.

Since the events of five years ago, the Master had kept up with her work, or at least what was able to be published in her name - which mostly consisted of things seemingly unrelated to her main field of study like her recent book on the bronze clocks of Benin. He kept up with her work, not merely for curiosity’s sake, although that was minimal given the Master’s innate prejudice against female scholars, but because it would have been strategically remiss not too, not when the the Magisterium seemed to hold Mrs Coulter with unusual reverence. Jordan College dealt with scholarly pursuits and to many of its occupants within the college’s walls, they felt immune and far removed from high politics. However, given the Master’s position as an overseer and protector of the college, his role necessitated keeping a watchful eye on the current state of politics in the country and abroad. It was his job to ensure scholastic sanctuary would not be broken, by the Magisterium and definitely not by the deceitfully dangerous woman standing before him.

The young porter at Mrs Coulter’s side practically shook, in fear or lust for the women, the Master did not know, but her effect was prominent and clear. This was a woman that could fulfil every one of her last desires merely with her presence and a smile. That is what made her so dangerous. As shown by the trial where Asriel had been stripped of all of his worldly possessions, including his own daughter, because this woman had let tears fall and regaled in a quivering voice how Asriel had seduced her, preyed on her and then impregnated her without her consent. It was believable to all who underestimated her, who believed in the inherent weakness of womanhood. Yet, the Master had known Asriel far longer, trusted him in circumstances whether it was wise to or not, and he had chosen to place his faith in him long ago. He believed Asriel at the trial. And there was something else too, a memory of reading a dissertation by candlelight, not stopping even when the moon was replaced with the faint glimmer of a breaking dawn, because the words on the pages were intoxicating, drawing him in and not letting go as they pieced together a story of facts and evidence in a way he had never seen before, only to find upon the end that the signature at the back was the cursive scrawl of a woman. He had known immediately, that this was not a woman to be underestimated or ignored. 

“Mrs Coulter.” The Master bowed his head courteously towards the woman at the door. “Come in.”

He gestured his hand to dismiss the porter and the young man momentarily stayed rooted to the spot, gazing at the beautiful woman as she stepped towards the Master’s desk.

“Thank you Master for seeing me without notice.” Mrs Coulter flashed a smile of scarlet and pearly white.

“You mentioned you’re here on Lord Asriel’s behalf?” The Master asked politely, gesturing for her to sit in the mahogany chair opposite his desk.

Marisa stepped forward towards the chair, lowering herself delicately into it and started to nonchalantly stroke the fur of her Golden Monkey daemon whilst continuing to smile sweetly at the Master as he moved to sit in his own chair on the other side of the desk. The move could have been called seductive, another less worthier man could have easily gotten lost in her long fingers stroking across the monkey’s back, mesmerised by the motions, going back and forth over her own lap.

“Yes. We bumped into one another on Svalbard two weeks ago.” She replied, still threading her fingers through her daemon’s fur, causing him to growl in pleasure at her actions.

The Master winced at the sound and turned his head from the sight, it was highly inappropriate. He had the distinct suspicion that she was doing this to purposefully goad him. 

“I was not under the impression either of you were on speaking terms.” He said delicately.

“Things change Master, surely you know that.” She smiled at him sweetly. “And anyway I had something Asriel needed.”

He chose to ignore the innuendo that teased from her lips as she spoke. The Master was not completely immune to the charm and sexuality emitting from the woman before him, but he was not naive to fall for such primitive tricks.

“And what is it that Lord Asriel wanted you to tell me that he couldn’t have said by another means of courier?”

“I have this for you.”

Without breaking eye contact, Marisa reached into the open bag at her side and pulled out an envelope addressed to the Master of Jordan College in a recognisable messy scrawl and sealed with the Belacqua crest.

“I see.”

The Master reached for the envelope, taking it from Marisa’s outstretched hand and noted that her other was still lost the golden fur of her daemon.

“And this.” She added, withdrawing a larger, much thicker, envelope from her bag.

The Master dropped the smaller envelope to his desk and reached for the silver letter opener, adorned with an enamel model of his daemon’s head on the handle. He flicked it across the opening of the larger envelope and withdrew a stack of worn paper held together with a silver clip. Shock pulsed through his body, causing his heart rate to increase slightly, to thud hard against his ribcage as he realised what he was looking at. He traced the printed title on the first page and flicked through the pages of the manuscript as if to check that this was really real and not some practical joke.

“You do know what it is that you’re giving me?” He looked up at her with a questioning glance.

“Yes.” Of course she did, this was Marisa Coulter, who was not a naive woman. She was fully aware of what this was and the consequences that could come by offering it to him. Yet, she did so anyway. “These are the Grondheim papers.”

“They are banned across Europe on the orders of the Magisterium.”

“All the good things are.” She said teasingly with a smirk plastered over her scarlet lips.

The Master stiffened at her words, still stricken by the juxtaposition of this woman whose allegiance to the Magisterium was well known and well documented, passing him heretical papers in the light of day.

Marisa smothered a laugh that threatened to encroach through her throat at the poor man’s facial expression. She could practically see the cogs in his brain swirl at this unexpected information and the events at hand. _God this old man could not take a joke._ She mentally filed a note to tell Asriel exactly how the Master reacted upon receiving heretical goods, if she ever saw him again that was.

“Asriel and I made a deal, I would provide you with these papers for Asriel’s research and in return you will allow me to spend the day with my daughter.”

Ah there it was. The girl. The Master had wondered why it had taken so long to get onto this topic. He had been sure at first sight of the woman in his office that she was here for the girl. A feat he knew he would reject instantaneously and with a little glee.

“This is all highly irregular Mrs Coulter.”

“I assure you Asriel approved of this deal, it’s all in the letter with Asriel’s seal and signature.” She moved a red-painted fingernail over to the untouched letter on his desk, tapping it gently.

He picked up the smaller envelope he’d initially discarded and used the letter opener once more to slice it open and reveal the paper inside. The old man stared at its contents for some time whilst Marisa looked on, her smile unwavering. He re-read the contents of Asriel’s letter several times, to ensure that he had understood it correctly, left no nuances un-analysed, deciphered no plea contra to Mrs Coulter’s demands. At last, he looked up from the letter to the stack of blasphemous papers on his desk and then lastly to the woman in front of him.

“I see.” The words came out slowly as he analysed the woman in front of him. He had no idea what Asriel was playing at, given that he had been so adamant throughout the last five years that the woman would never so match as catch a glimpse of the girl.

Mrs Coulter raised an eyebrow at him as if daring him to disagree with the contents of Asriel’s letter. The Master glanced at the signature on the page; Asriel always had the most ridiculously messy handwriting, whether purposeful to avoid unwanted spying on his research and decipherable only to those that knew him best. He felt assured that Mrs Coulter was one of the few that could read it without difficulty, given their known historic liaisons.

He bowed his head to her and nodded. “I will have Mrs Londsdale bring the girl down to you. You may take her out today but return her to this college before dusk.”

Marisa smiled, more mutely this time, grateful that the second fight in this battle of wills had been won with little difficulty. She watched the Master rise from his plush seat behind the desk and move towards the door, ready to send word to Mrs Lonsdale to prepare the girl for their guest. As he reached the door, he released the door handle and turned back to face her, remembering something important.

“The girl doesn’t know you are her mother and believes Lord Asriel to be her Uncle, it would be appreciated that you allow her to remain ignorant of her true parentage during your visit today.”

Marisa had to force herself once more to not roll her eyes in response. This was a ridiculous ruse that could only have come from Asriel.

“I presume this was Asriel’s way of avoiding the demands of parenthood.” She smirked; her disdain for that particular arrangement evident.

“I believe he has this arrangement in place so that she can avoid the unpleasantness that would come with public acknowledgement of her true relationship to Lord Asriel and conversations regarding other aspects of her parentage.”

 _You mean me._ She thought _Just say it. Say the unpleasantness is me._ But she didn’t give in to the pulsing hatred that circulated in her head, choosing to nod in reluctant acceptance instead.

“Of course Master.”

The Master stared at her for a moment, his gaze unwavering, as if to analyse her true sincerity, calculating the probability she would actually do as he says. Yet Marisa was too good for those games, he could hardly put a dent in the emotionless mask she had formed her body into.

“You have my word.” She added and then there was nothing else for the Master to do but to deliver the girl to the woman and hope she stayed true to her word.

* * *

“I don’t wanna wear it!”

The sound of her daughter’s insolence carried down the corridor to meet Marisa’s ears before she could even set eyes on her. The petulant cries of a young girl’s contrariness echoed on the old stonework of the college and it amused Marisa to think how little work the scholars that co-habited the college with her daughter could get done at times when her daughter’s moods were disagreeable. The girl had certainly inherited her father’s stubbornness, that much was clear without even setting eyes on her.

The ancient mahogany door rattled opened at the exact moment Marisa was dusting the blood from her nails onto the Golden Monkey’s fur. Nobody could know how her angst and fear of the prospect of soon being reunited with her daughter after half a decade, had led her to absentmindedly press her nails so hard into her daemon’s fur they had come away speckled in red. She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as the gap in the door widened and the Master stepped back into the room with a pudgy, wispy haired and red-faced woman gripping tightly to a squirming little girl. _Her daughter._

A strange sensation that Marisa had never felt before rose in her chest as she saw her daughter for the first time since she was an infant. 

_“_ Lyra, this is Mrs Coulter, she’s come to spend the day with you.” The Master said, gesturing to the woman sat in front of them.

Marisa stood up at the Master’s words, manoeuvring herself around the chairs and into the middle of the room. In a game of chess she was always white. This moment marked the end of her opening gambit. Now the game could begin.

Marisa’s eyes focused in on the little girl standing between the two adults and a broad smile lit up her face, brightening her features and turning her into the most enticing creature in existence.

Upon seeing the strange new woman, Lyra instantly stopped her squirming. In her near five years she had never seen a woman more beautiful than the one now standing before her. Lyra’s mouth gently widened into an ‘o’ shape as she gazed up at the woman. Dark curls, a half shade darker than Lyra’s own, framed a pale face with scarlet coated lips that matched her tailored suit and hat perched on the back of her head. Lyra was entranced. Even Pan stopped flying about as a humming bird and settled as an ermin at Lyra’s feet, staring in awe at the Golden Monkey daemon currently sitting at Mrs Coulter’s side.

“Mrs Coulter, this is _our_ Lyra.”

Lyra was too enthralled with the new woman that the Master’s words missed her ears, but the stress on the word _ours_ did not go unnoticed by Marisa. However, she paid his words no notice, instead merely continuing to smile enchantedly at the young girl by the Master’s side, giving him no satisfaction of responding.

Whilst Lyra stood momentarily transfixed at the new arrival, Marisa took the moment to analyse the girl in turn. Relief flooded her bones as she drank in the girl’s features, dark eyes, hair highlighted slightly due to endless summer days spent in the sun, but otherwise dark, jaw and nose a very clear ode to her father. It was clearer now than it was when Marisa had first held the newborn baby in her arms five years ago, that there was no way Marisa could have ever passed this girl off as Edward’s. Even with Marisa’s dark hair compared to Edward’s blonde, the child would have needed sharp features and light eyes to have ever had hope to pass as the now-deceased politician’s child. Whereas this child standing before her with curious eyes was so clearly Asriel’s it was unnerving.

She even had the same restlessness that Asriel failed to control, even now she was tugging incessantly at the ribbon in her hair without even realising. Marisa’s eyes glanced over the girl one more time, taking in the creased baby blue dress that looked as if it had been mended hastily several time and the once white, now grey, socks poking out from scuffed black shoes that no amount of polish would ever be able to adequately fix.

Marisa bent down to Lyra’s height, her bright smile still unwavering

“Ribbons weren’t my thing when I was a little girl either.” Marisa said with conspirative eyes, reaching out to unfurl the bow that had been hastily tied in Lyra’s messy brown hair.

Lyra grinned back. 

“Well I think that now Lyra’s ready, we’ll best be on our way then.”

Marisa’s straightened up to look the Master in the eye, daring him to stop them. As she did, she reached out for Lyra’s hand, who grasped it instinctively.

The Master’s eyes narrowed at the clasped hands of the little girl and the beautiful woman, but met Mrs Coulter’s eye and nodded.

“Of course Mrs Coulter. Remember to bring Lyra back by supper time. And Lyra.” He added, as the woman and child moved past him and into the hallway. “Remember to be good and well behaved for Mrs Coulter, I expect your best manners.”

Lyra’s eyes rolled at his words, which Marisa caught before the girl turned over her shoulder. “I promise Master.”She mumbled.

The Master sighed as he watched mother and daughter turn down the hallway towards the dark wooden doors that exited onto the street. He hoped that Asriel knew what he was doing, because the Master had a feeling now that mother and child were reunited, even without the full knowledge of their true relationship, it would be much more difficult to break them apart than Asriel had initially envisioned. In fact, he very much doubted Asriel had even thought of the consequences that this one, seemingly innocuous, meeting could cause. God help them all.

* * *

As soon as they were out of the college and out of the Master’s earshot, Lyra turned eagerly to Mrs Coulter.

“Who are you?” She asked in wonder at the beautiful woman before her.

“I’m a friend of your f-, Uncle Asriel’s.” Marisa corrected herself before Lyra could notice. “He thought it would be nice for us to spend some time together. He knows that you don’t have much female company living in college, so I volunteered to come see you. I’m awfully excited to get to know you Lyra!”

“Oh!” Lyra said, processing the new information in her mind, overwhelmed in surprise at this glamorous woman’s interest in her.

Pan buzzed overhead as a brightly coloured cockatoo, mirroring Lyra’s awe and excitement.

“What are we going to do?”

“Well, I was thinking you could show me around Oxford and then we could go for lunch at this hotel I know, I hear they have the most delicious little cakes.”

Lyra grinned at the mention of cakes and Marisa returned her smile.

“Have you been here before?” Lyra asked curiously, as they turned down a cobbled street.

“A long time ago I used to study in Oxford.”

“You were a scholar?” The girl said incredulously, failing to mask her surprise and disdain. For, Lyra was a perceptive child and it was clear among the scholars of Jordan and from the other visitors, that female scholars were to be pitied. In Lyra’s own experience of them, old women with greying hair and dull voices, they were unremarkable, far from the fashionable and entrancing young woman that was currently holding her hand.

“Does that surprise you?”

Lyra held back a yes and bit her lip.

Marisa laughed with a smile to show she wasn’t offended. “Well yes I was a scholar, I even worked with your Uncle for a time.” Marisa glanced down at the girl, this was clearly the right thing to say as Lyra’s eyes shone in wonder, a million questions clearly sparking through her mind. “Now I’m a member of St Sophia’s, but I’m rarely in Oxford now, my work is mainly in London and sometimes abroad.”

It was difficult to process all the new things Mrs Coulter was saying, but Lyra focused on her last point. “What’s London like?”

“London is magnificent, it’s beautiful and there is so much to do! You can see the guards with long bearskin hats that guard the palace and no matter what you do in front of them, say a joke or sing a song, the guards will never break a smile or laugh.”

“Really?” Lyra questioned. “I bet I could, I’m good at making people laugh, or you could play a trick and that could work maybe…” Suddenly her child’s mind raced with ideas over how to make these guards laugh. She knew she could do it, she could, if only she’d be allowed to go to London. However, it was unlikely anybody would take her, the scholars mostly kept to the college and the more adventurous ones like her Uncle were back so infrequently there was only ever a rare and slim window to ask to come with them. They always invariably said no.

The furthest she’d been was to Abington, when one of the porters had to run an errand and she’d begged him to take him and before he could said yes she’d hopped into the back of his van with all the old and worn furniture the college was going to get repaired by the carpenter in the village just outside Oxford.

Marisa grinned at the girl. “I bet you could.”

“I’ve never been anywhere.” Lyra sighed in resignation.

“You’re only little Lyra, you’ve got many years ahead of you to see the world.”

“My Uncle said he’d take me next time he goes North. He said it’ll be dangerous but that don’t scare me. I’m really brave!” Lyra lied. In fact although she’d begged and begged her Uncle to take her with him last time he had come to Oxford, he had resolutely refused and even yelled at her for her incessant pestering.

As if to support her statement of bravery however, and a chance to impress the beautiful woman she had quickly become enamoured with, Lyra's daemon changed quickly into a lion cub and bared his teeth at the older woman who looked suitably startled at the display. At least it wasn’t a leopard, Marisa thought. A small mercy. 

“I don’t doubt that Lyra.” Marisa said it in a way different to other adults, she wasn’t dismissive of Lyra’s claims of bravery and she wasn’t ridiculing the little girl either. It was clear to Lyra that the older woman did truly believe that Lyra was brave.

In fact, Marisa did believe it. In the few minutes she had been reunited with her daughter, it was clear to her that the girl had inherited the restless desire for adventure and the inherent bravery that came with it, from her father. She didn’t doubt Lyra would stare down the face of danger and roar like Asriel’s snow leopard daemon Stelmaria.

“Will you take me?” Excitement at the prospect coursed through Lyra as she skipped down the street, dragging the older woman with her.

“Sorry Lyra, what was that?” Marisa had been so lost in the similarities between Lyra and her ex-lover she had momentarily tuned out.

Lyra looked unperturbed at the need to repeat herself. She was used to it, given her close quarters to an abundance of old scholars with limited hearing abilities.

“Will you take me to other places like London and Arabia and Muscavee and the North?” She listed places that she’d heard about, not knowing how close or far any of them really were, just that they were out there, beyond Oxford. And that status of being _out there_ , made them inherently more interesting and exciting.

Looking at the pleading look in her daughter’s innocent round eyes, Marisa could do nothing but grin back. “I think we’d have a lot of fun together don’t you?”

Enchanted by the woman and spellbound with excitement, Lyra didn’t even notice the fact that the older woman had not in fact answered her question.

Marisa sighed with relief as something else caught the little girl’s attention, avoiding the risk of an awkward conversation. Lyra pointed up at a tabby cat on the tallest branch of an oak tree and Marisa was suddenly subject to a long-winded story that was clearly embellished and littered with half truths, of how Lyra regularly climbed up onto the roof of the college and was able to jump from building to building all across Oxford. Given the fact that her daughter was barely 3 and a half feet tall, it was highly unlikely she’d be able to reach the roofing from even the highest window ledge at Jordan. The thought pacified Marisa slightly, at least until the girl got taller.

* * *

The stories continued, Lyra speaking almost non-stop as she led the way around Oxford through the winding streets of Jericho and down to the river bank, because apparently some street urchin that knew Lyra by name, had seen one of the gyptian boats earlier that morning and Lyra just had to see for herself. This had led to some story about a war, and how the college and town children regularly fought with the boat children when the gyptians came to Oxford. The story involved a lot of mud and a near-death experience where Lyra had almost drowned in the river, rescued by the very unamused man that manned the canal lock. She could swim now though. What a relief.

Unfortunately, and despite Lyra’s incessant lies, Marisa feared that this story was not nearly as embellished as the other stories had been. The thought made her chest tighten, how could Asriel allow his daughter to become so feral and wild? Did he not care at all about her wellbeing? She was five years old for goodness sake and she was allowed free roam of the entire city, where anybody and anything could harm her. Asriel always did have the entitlement and unawareness that came with being a man, he just couldn’t see how vulnerable a little girl could be in the world when he had spent his entire life strutting through it without a care in the world. Yet Marisa knew the inherent dangers that came from being female, even as a child, especially as a child, and fear festered in her stomach over Lyra’s current situation. Anger quickly pulsed through Marisa’s veins and she struggled to mask the venom with a pleasant smile for Lyra. If she ever got her hands on Asriel… She thought with a murderous snarl.

Asriel had begged her for their child when she had become pregnant, had assured her the child would be perfectly safe with him once Marisa had reluctantly but necessarily, handed the newborn baby over into his charge. And then he had been so determined to outwit her during the flood, after it had become clear the Magisterium intended to punish them both and keep hold of the girl for themselves following the trial. Asriel had been the one to get to her first and it had felt like a stab in the heart when she had heard that he had entrusted her into the care of his old college in Oxford. Scholastic sanctuary would indeed keep the Magisterium’s paws off of the girl, but Marisa knew Asriel intimately and knew that this was also a purposeful twist of the knife to her heart, as it would also keep her daughter far from Marisa’s own reach. Regardless of whether she even wanted the girl, which at the time she adamantly had not. Asriel had known wanting the girl was irrelevant it was more of the fact the child was now out of reach and so she couldn’t have her. Marisa’s heart had hardened at the news and this was when she had known that the game of wits and seduction that her and Asriel had been playing since they’d met, had ended. Her king had fallen and Asriel had triumphed. Yet, the end of their first game brought with it a new one, this one with higher stakes and not an ounce of tenderness which had buttressed the first one. The game that was now afoot, was dark, fuelled by anger and hatred and their daughter had now gone from prize to pawn in the game of wits between her parents. It would take all of Marisa’s skills, deceit and deception, to become triumphant. She was not naive to think having Lyra’s clammy little hand in her own smooth one in that current moment was a win. This was just the first move of many. She would await Asriel’s response, whenever that came.

When it became clear the gyptian boat was long gone, merely passing through on its way to London, Lyra lost interest with the river and tugged on Marisa’s hand in order to take her on a long winded route back to the town centre. Lyra continued speeling out new stories, pointing out people and things as she went, which led to highly detailed tangents and even more stories littered with half-truths and out right lies. It was obvious to Marisa that the girl had a quick tongue and a compulsion for lying that had not yet been honed to become believable. Both of her parents exemplified this skill, Marisa more so than Asriel. However, given the girl’s wild imagination, it was not clear believable would ever be in Lyra’s nature.

Exhaustion quickly overcame Marisa, so unused to spending time with young children and their chaotic energy. It was hard to keep up with Lyra’s stories, and Marisa had to pay close attention and ask constant questions for clarification, as Lyra had happily assumed her knowledge of street urchin etiquette and the running of kitchens. She was grateful as they wandered towards the gates of the botanical gardens, at least this would be quieter with places to sit and to recover.

As Lyra continued spinning a tale about her activities in Oxford, Marisa silently wondered how she’d produced such a thing, a boisterous, loud and garrulous little girl. Such a far cry from how Marisa had been as a child, brought up under the severe and watchful eye of her mother and then the boarding school in the English countryside, the latter of which had felt like complete freedom compared to life with her mother, despite the school's austere conditions. She supposed the differences lay at the feet of Asriel’s decision to let their child run wild, uncultured and feral through the streets of Oxford. Heaven forbid that man actually take responsibility and care for anybody but himself. Thank goodness she hadn’t ever seriously considered falling for his late night ideas of divorce, elopement and marriage, to raise their daughter together, always brought up with intense sincerity and searing passion. If she hadn’t known in the manner Stelmaria openly nuzzled her face against Marisa’s hand or in the touches and kisses Asriel gave her; she would have known then with that single look and pleading voice that Asriel Belacqua was passionately in love with her, in a way she was sure he hadn’t ever been before. Yet, it was clear now that it would have been a disaster, marrying Asriel. He had proven himself ill-adapted and unwilling in the realm of fatherhood, it would be erroneous to expect that he wouldn’t have taken to marriage and other domestic demands in a similar vain. It would have been hell. Asriel had been good with pretty words and pleading looks but his passion had been fuelled by the illicit nature of their affair, she thought. He had loved her because he couldn’t have her, not truly, not completely. He was like any man, enchanted with all he could not have. If she had fallen into his grasp she would have been discarded, just like their child had been. The thought angered her and a tear unexpectedly dropped from her lashes.

She brushed it away swiftly and tried to push all thoughts of the man from her mind, an arduous task when currently faced with his downsized spitting image. Instead she concentrated on Lyra’s stories before taking the initiative to share several of her own from her travels, cherry-picked to capture Lyra’s interest whilst still bordering on the right side of respectable for a little girl’s ears. Lyra oo-ed and ah-ed and her eyes widened as Marisa’s silky voice regaled tales of reindeer and ice bears, igloos and skating across lakes the size of Brytain. It felt good, Marisa thought, to have her daughter’s attention, to feel so admired by the little girl.

As they continued to walk through the gardens, Lyra uncharacteristically silent in rapt attention to Marisa’s tales of the far north, Lyra’s stomach rumbled and her face reddened at the noise that had interrupted Marisa’s story of the Greenlandic inuits.

“Hungry dear?”

“A bit.” Lyra admitted.

“Well we’re a little early for our lunch reservation, but I’m sure they can squeeze us in. I’m feeling slightly famished myself.” Marisa rubbed her own stomach lightly and Lyra grinned. “Did you have breakfast this morning?”

Lyra shook her head.

“You didn’t have breakfast this morning?” Marisa tried to clarify.

“No- um. Mrs Londsdale said I could only have porridge and I wanted eggs like in hall. But they wouldn’t let me in the hall because…” Lyra’s ears went bright red and she trailed off.

“You did something you weren’t supposed to do?” Marisa continued for her.

“Yeah…how did you know?”

Marisa grinned. “Because I once knew a little girl just like you.” 

“Oh.”

“Am I in trouble?” Lyra bit her lip.

“Why would you be in trouble?”

“Because I…I tried to do a flip from the high table and i ended up breaking the Master’s picture.” Lyra’s lip wobbled, in fear of being reprimanded from this beautiful woman she was quickly idolising.

Marisa laughed heartily at this, imaging her daughter trying to fling herself from the ornate table, the portrait of the fist master that had sat for centuries behind the Master’s chair tumbling to the floor.

Lyra looked up at the woman with a frown. Confusion wrought in her face. Adults usually scolded her, they never laughed at her antics and Mrs Coulter, for all as nice as she seemed, didn’t seem like the type to allow any slip of bad manners.

“I’m just trying to imagine the butler’s face at the sight!”

Lyra grinned at that. “His face was big and red like a tomato, like this.” Lyra tried to mimic the old balding man by puffing out her cheeks, straining them red in the process and bulging her eyes.

Marisa smiled brightly and squeezed her daughter’s hand. Both mother and daughter laughed with glee.

* * *

“Wow.” Lyra’s eyes lit up in admiration as they entered the hotel Marisa had arranged their lunch at. The entrance hall was all marble floors, gold decor and glistening chandeliers.

“Has your Uncle Asriel taken you anywhere like this?”

Lyra pursed her lips for a moment to think. “We got ice cream once and another time he took me to the covered market and I saw a man skin a pig.”

Lyra’s excitement at seeing the skinned pig made Marisa wrinkle her nose.

“Ah.” She said. “I see.” Marisa dropped the subject given the obvious lack of time Asriel spent with their daughter in respectable places. Well if he wasn’t going to bring their daughter up in a fashion that reflected her status, then she would.

Lyra’s glee continued as they walked into the dining room of the hotel and were seated in the corner next to a large window.

“I never saw a place this pretty.” She said with wonder, her eyes flitting around the room. For it was true, whilst Jordan and the other colleges were old and ornate, they were masculine and draughty, all sharp corners and dark wood. Lyra had never set foot in a place that was so cream and soft and beautiful in its aesthetics, just like the woman that sat across from her.

“Would you like some hot chocolatl Lyra?” Marisa asked sweetly.

Lyra’s eyes lit up and she nodded fiercely. “Yes!”

“Yes please.” Marisa corrected, but not unkindly and Lyra repeated the words without any hint of defiance. She was keen to please the kind and beautiful woman who was treating her to lunch in the grandest place she’d ever seen outside of the halls of Jordan College.

Marisa ordered a pot of tea for herself and a pot of hot chocolatl for Lyra, knowing that a single cup would probably not be enough for the girl.

When it arrived, Marisa poured the chocolatl into the young girl’s teacup and watched as the girl’s hands reached out to grab it immediately.

“Just a second Lyra, it’s good manners to wait until everybody has been served their drinks before you drink yours.”

“Oh.” Lyra said without a hint of embarrassment, placing the china cup back onto the saucer with such gusto that some of the brown liquid sloshed onto the saucer. Marisa winced but maintained her smile towards the girl.

After pouring tea from her own pot into the cup and stirring in just a pinch of milk, Marisa nodded to the little girl opposite her. “Now you can drink.”

Lyra needed no further instruction and eagerly reached for the cup again. She gulped it down furiously as if even a moment’s breath meant it would be taken away from her.

“Slow down Lyra.” Her voice was light and friendly, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness. Lyra knew she would be wise to do as Mrs Coulter said.

“It’s soo good!” Lyra declared, wiping the chocolate and cream marks that streamed her upper lip with the back of her hand.

Marisa bit her lip to restrain the scolding she knew was on the tip of her tongue and instead reached for her own serviette and wiped the remaining chocolate from the little girl’s mouth.

“Thanks.” Lyra said.

“Not a problem. Next time you should use your serviette instead of your hand.” Marisa said diplomatically.

“I promise.” Lyra looked up at Marisa sweetly, but given the lack of attention Lyra clearly paid to most things in her life, Marisa took her promise with a pinch of salt.

However, Lyra at least tried to act politely for the remainder of their lunch. Waiting patiently as the waiter placed a towering tray of finger sandwiches and cakes full of cream and topped with berries and sugar. Marisa watched as Lyra practically salivated at the abundance of sweets, but waited as patiently as five year olds could, even if her elbows were firmly planted on the tablecloth in a complete disregard for social etiquette, waiting for Marisa to dictate when she could start.

Marisa took her time pouring Lyra and herself more drinks from the fresh pots the waiter had brought and saw from the corner of her eye as Lyra’s patience wained, leaning closer and closer to the sandwiches and cakes, to the point the food risked contamination with five year old saliva.

“Which sandwich would you like to start with Lyra? There’s several choices.”

“That one I think.” Lyra said, prodding at a cheese sandwich with her chubby finger.

Marisa smiled and lifted the sandwich onto Lyra’s awaiting plate before choosing one of her own. Lyra's hunger was clear and they quickly depleted three quarters of the sandwiches and several of the cakes that Lyra had greedily bitten into, leaving smears of cream and chocolate all around her mouth. Lyra waited patiently for Marisa to wipe the food from her lips with the serviette before speaking to her again.

"If you know Uncle Asriel, did you know my parents?”

The question caught Marisa off-guard and for a moment she blinked, uncertain over what to say or do. The whole situation in front of her, taking tea with her daughter she hadn’t seen since her birth, pretending to be a stranger (although maybe on that point she was) suddenly felt so absurd. Like a pantomime production, a farce.

“I only know your Uncle, I never got to meet his family.” She replied without really lying. She hadn't known his family at all. 

Her composure came back in an instant and Lyra was so enchanted by the cake in front of her, it was unlikely she even noticed the uncertainty that had flashed through the older woman’s eyes.

“Oh.” Lyra said. “Nobody tells me anything about them, even when I beg and beg, I thought you’d tell me if you knew.”

“I’m sorry Lyra.” Marisa said sympathetically, reaching across the table and clasping the little girl’s free-hand in her own. She squeezed gently, despite the stickiness of the tiny hand in hers.

“Does your Uncle not talk about them?” Marisa fished for information - what stories had Asriel made up as cover? She wondered.

“No.” Lyra shook her head. “He just says they died when their airship crashed when I was a baby.”

“That’s very unfortunate. But you have lots of people to look after you now, you have your Uncle and the Master and you seem to have lots of friends in Oxford, and now you have me.”

At this, Lyra looked up at the older woman with a big smile. “I’m glad you came here Mrs Coulter, this is the best day ever.”

“I’m very glad I came too Lyra, I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

“You have?”

“Oh yes. And I’m so very glad I did, you’re a very special girl.” Marisa flashed her teeth in a broad smile towards the girl and Lyra’s face tinged red.

She placed her teacup back onto the saucer and pushed her plate slightly away from her on the table. Lunch was now over.

“Now Lyra.”Marisa leaned closer to Lyra and lowered her voice as if to reveal a big secret. “I have a question to ask. And for you response I want you to nod or shake her head. Don’t say anything.” Marisa knew Lyra’s reaction could give her plan away before it had even begun.

“What is it?” Lyra whispered.

“I was wondering if you would like to come stay with me in London for a while? At least until your Uncle comes back from his trip?”

The words were out of her mouth before her daemon could squawk at her for her unexpected and uncharacteristic foolishness. This had not been the plan.

The original idea to meet Lyra had brewed quickly and unexpectedly from the sight of Lyra’s picture on Asriel’s desk back in Svalbard. It had caused envy and anger to course through Marisa’s veins at the thought that Asriel had something that she could not have. She needed to take it back, even if it were just for a day. Yet, Marisa still had no inclination to be a mother. She’d barely built back her reputation as it was, destroyed by the scandal and salvaged just barely at the trial by her waterworks at the docket. And it had still taken her the last five years to get somewhere even remotely near to where she’d once been in society’s status-obsessed eyes, the wife of a Minister. She could not afford to destroy it, a fact that which made the words out of her mouth so surprising.

When she’d entered the Master’s study earlier that morning to spend a day with her daughter, it had been to satisfy her curiosity and annoy Asriel in the process, she had had no intention of actually absconding with the child. In fact Lyra’s brashness, incessant talking and compulsion for lying in the few hours they’d spent together didn’t expostulate the case. The girl was frankly exhausting and there was only so much time that Marisa could feign interest in the embellished accounts of an ill-mannered child. Yet, nonetheless, Marisa had asked her the girl to come stay with her, knowing full what the girl’s answer would be. She was going to end up with a rambunctious five year old on her hands, all because she was angry and was too stubborn to ignore it. Angry at Asriel’s arrogance, that he could take something from her, her own flesh and blood and lord it over her as the one thing she could never touch and then cast it aside once he had. He was irresponsible and negligent and yet _he_ had the audacity to call _her_ a terrible mother. The egos of men. It was clear the girl had never set foot in a classroom, was allowed free rein of an entire city to converse with servants, street children and gyptians. This was not the life Marisa had intended for the daughter she’d thrusted into Asriel’s manservant’s hands on the day of Lyra’s birth. Asriel had promised he’d care for their child and Marisa had foolishly believed him. She didn’t know why, given Asriel’s track record for self-absorption and perhaps that was precisely why he had insisted so forcefully on taking the girl, not because he truly wanted her, but because he hadn’t wanted anybody else to have what was his.

Lyra’s eyes widened at Marisa’s question to join her in London, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from squealing in excitement.

“With you?” Lyra couldn’t contain herself and Marisa smiled at the excitement her daughter was exuding.

“Yes, you and I. My husband died a long time ago and I can get awfully lonely by myself. I think it would be lots of fun to live with you.” Marisa whispered conspiratively.

“Yes!”

“If you came with me, we’d have to go now. I have a very busy schedule, so we wouldn’t be able to go back to Jordan. I shall buy you new things in London to make up for it, you can pick out new clothes and books and toys, how does that sound?”

Lyra nodded fiercely. “I want to come with you!” Then she paused as her daemon whispered something in her ear. Lyra bit her lip before asking quietly. “Did the Master say I could go?”

“Yes.” The lie flew easily off Marisa’s tongue and Lyra instantly relaxed, although her daemon, obviously more perceptive than the girl, still seemed slightly apprehensive.

“Come on then, let’s go to London!”

As Marisa went to help button Lyra’s coat, she glanced towards the dining room door where she could see a young man lurking out of place in workmen’s clothes at the entrance way. There had been people following them all day, different people, some men, a woman, and none of them had been well-trained in the art of surveillance. Indeed, Marisa had almost laughed every time she’d noticed them, always so stark against their surroundings. It was not completely unexpected that the Master did not trust her although she was surprised at the lack of care that had been put into the plan to tail her. She supposed that there hadn’t been much time to instigate such a plan given the suddenness of her arrival in Oxford. As such, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult to slip out of sight, even with a girl who refused to ever stop talking.

“You’re my favourite person in the world Mrs Coulter!” Lyra cried with joy, oblivious to the fact they were being ushered out by a back door that led out towards an alleyway instead of the majestic gold decorated entrance they’d arrive through. To the five year old, meeting this glamorous woman and being whisked to London, was the best thing to have ever happened to her.

At her daughter’s words Marisa smiled unconsciously, the first genuine smile of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, thank you so much for the positive response to the first chapter of this story. I wrote my first piece of Marisa/Asriel fanfiction back in 2006 and I used to search longingly through fanfiction.net for the next decade in search of something to satiate my desire for all things Marisa/Asriel. Unfortunately it wasn't a very popular tag for a long-time and so I was very grateful when the first season of HDM started and there was a revival in HDM fanfiction and the Marisa/Asriel tag has started to massively expand! I spent much of the past year refreshing the tag here reading as much as I could. 
> 
> Secondly, I have several years worth of ideas and half-written stories about these two characters so if you bare with me through this story, there will many more to come!


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